“Multiple PC's - Battery Backup - APC PowerChute Business Edition Basic”

Ron Stultz

 14 February 2007

Modified: 13 March 2007 

In part 1 of "Battery Backup - UPS Selection", I described the research I conducted into deciding on which type and size of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to buy for my home needs. In part 1, I described that I wanted a UPS that could support my 3 tower local area network (LAN) computers, a cable modem, a 4 port router and my telephone answering system (supports cordless phones). 

Given all the above and wanting to error on the side of having more volt amps (VA) that I needed, I bought an APC SUA 1500VA UPS. 

When the APC UPS was delivered, it was easy to install although it does weigh close to 65 pounds. I must comment here that because the unit uses LED’s to indicate battery charge and load, these LED’s are so bright, you can not read the small label under them as to what they mean or are supposed to represent. So the first thing I had to do was to use my label maker to make larger labels and install under the appropriate set of LED’s. 

Now when I connected my main computer, router, cable modem and telephone answering machine to the UPS, the total load on the UPS appeared to be minimal as indicated by only one LED being lit in the column of load LED’s on the left side of the UPS, so given the fact that I have 2 other computers on my local area network (LAN) sitting right beside the UPS, I also tied their loads to the UPS and again was very pleased to see that still only one LED of the load LED column of LED’s was lit. 

APC Business Edition Basic software. With all the hardwire devices I wanted supported tied to the UPS, the instructions which came with the UPS said I should connect a USB cable from the UPS to my main computer and install the APC Business Edition Basic software. Ok. I inserted the APC Business Edition Basic CD into my main computer and in the very first window of the application was a display saying that Business Edition Basic consisted of 3 distinct applications: agent, server and console and it very clearly said to install the agent component on all systems being supported by a UPS.  

So I installed the agent software on my main computer and then the server software and finally the console software. I then went to my second LAN PC and tried to install the agent software as the CD had told me to do but when I tried to install, the application would not install as it could not “see” an attached UPS. What? 

Upon investigation and I have to say that APC does not make it easy, the agent component of their Business Edition Basic software is only to be installed on a computer that is directly tied to a UPS via a USB cable. In other words, their idea is that each PC would have its own UPS and thus the agent software would detect the communications between the PC and the UPS via the dedicated USB cable. So, ok, the point to the Business Edition Basic server and console applications on the main computer?

If each of my 3 different LAN PC’s had their own UPS, from my main computer, I could see each UPS and configure it as I desired. Nice, but I don’t need 3 different UPS’s to support 3 PC’s on my LAN.

 Again, given that I wanted to keep various devices alive during transient power events, I also wanted the UPS to signal the main computer when its battery backup was about to be exhausted and command the main computer and all of my LAN PC’s to gracefully shutdown. So how to do this since APC’s Business Edition basic could not. 

APC’s Business Edition Deluxe? When I installed APC’s Business Edition Basic there was a reference made that to be able to “see” UPS devices outside of my LAN, I would need their deluxe edition. Would this let me command all my LAN-based PC’s to shut down gracefully?  Nope. The deluxe addition just allows a user to see UPS’s tied directly to PC’s on multiple LANS. Nice, but not what I needed and I did verify this functioning with APC. 

So how to communicate to all PC’s to shut down gracefully?  Again, more research and again, APC did not make it easy, but in my APC SUA 1500 UPS there is what they call a smart-card slot. Now to command multiple PC’s on a LAN to shut down gracefully, I needed to buy either an Ethernet or serial interface card which installs into the UPS smart-slot. With the Ethernet card installed, I would no longer need a USB cable from the UPS to my main computer as the UPS would become a node on my LAN and be able to communicate with all PC’s on the LAN. With a serial card installed, I would have to run serial cable from each PC to the UPS smart card. No thank you.  

So finally after much research and even a communications or two with APC support and I must say that they where very responsive, I determined I needed an APC Ethernet interface smart card, but when I checked, APC wanted almost $250 for this card! What? $250 is almost as much as I paid for the UPS itself, and so off to eBay I went. 

Again, APC does not make it easy as there are 3 versions of Ethernet smart cards for their SUA 1500 UPS: (AP9617) a plain vanilla Ethernet card; (AP9618) an Ethernet card with environmental monitoring to detect out of bounds heat or humidity conditions in the room hosting the UPS or PC’s and also allowing command shutdown on PC’s outside of the LAN and finally an Ethernet card (AP9619) with environmental monitoring but which does not allow PC’s to be commanded outside of the LAN the UPS is a part of. 

Costs (from APC): the vanilla Ethernet card is like $250, the best or AP9617 is $500 or so and the last or AP 9619 is $400: expensive to say the least. 

So on eBay I have found an AP 9619 and am going to buy it. No, I will not be able to command PC’s outside of my LAN but that should not be a problem and this model does have environmental monitoring, which, although it not really necessary, would be nice to have in unattended situations where power has failed and my air conditioning is not running and heat builds up excessively. 

What a mess. All I wanted to do was to command PC’s on my LAN to shutdown gracefully but it has taken a ton of research to determine what I need and at this point, I do not have the smart card in hand or the software installed on all PC’s to make sure it all works according to APC’s descriptions. 

So if you have a LAN and want a UPS to command all to shutdown gracefully, make sure the UPS you buy has some Ethernet capability.